MY ANGEL guide. 185 I My Angel Guide. GAZED down life's dim labyrinth, Crossed o'er by many a tangled clue, And wild as wild could be ; And as I gazed in doubt and dread, I knew him for a heavenly guide, And as I leaned my weary head I wondered if the shining ones For there was light within my soul, And all around the blue above The clustering starlight lay; And easterly I saw upreared So, hand in hand we trod the wild, My angel-love and I His lifted wing all quivering With tokens from the sky Strange, my dull thought could not divine 'Twas lifted-but to fly! Again down life's dim labyrinth I grope my way alone, While wildly through the midnight sky The sharp, bare thorns are sown. Yet firm my foot, for well I know For when my guide went up he left The pearly gates ajar. EMILY C. JUDSON. AF Old Folks. H! don't be sorrowful, darling, And don't be sorrowful, pray; Taking the year together, my dear, There isn't more night than day. 'Tis rainy weather, my darling, We are old folks now, my darling, We have had our May, my darling, And our roses long ago, And the time of the year is coming, my dear, For the silent night and the snow. THE LAST LEAF. And God is God, my darling, Of night as well as of day, And we feel and know that we can go Ay! God of the night, my darling, 187 The mossy marbles rest On the lips that he has pressed And the names he loved to hear Have been carved for many a year My grandmamma has said— That he had a Roman nose, And his cheek was like a rose But now his nose is thin, And it rests upon his chin And a crook is in his back, I know it is a sin For me to sit and grin At him here: But the old three-cornered hat, And if I should live to be The last leaf upon the tree In the spring Let them smile, as I do now, At the old forsaken bough Where I cling. OLIVER W. HOLMES. WHAT THE END SHALL BE. What the End shall be. WHEN another life is added To the heaving, turbid mass; It is well we cannot see What the end shall be. When across the infant features And the heart looks from the windows With a boundless promise fraught; It is well we cannot see When the boy, upon the threshold Puts aside the arm maternal That enlocks him ere he roam; 189 |